![]() These ships could contribute on either side of the conflict. The prizes were six heavy destroyers, and the fast battleships Strasbourg and Dunkerque. Two of the French battleships were veterans of World War I old, slow, and not particularly useful to either the Italian or the British navies. The largest concentration of French ships, including four French battleships, lay at Mers-el-Kebir, in Algeria. The Royal Navy would force a French decision, with the result of either seizing or destroying the French navy. In early July 1940, Winston Churchill decided to take a risk averse approach. Many of the heavy ships, mostly located in French colonies, could aid either Axis or British forces. ![]() The surrender of France in 1940 left the disposition of the French Navy in question. When war began, the Royal Navy collected most of its modern battleships into the Grand Fleet, based at Scapa Flow. The British won the race, but not by so far that they could ignore the power of the German High Seas Fleet. In the years prior to World War I, Britain and Germany raced to outbuild each other, resulting in vast fleets of dreadnought battleships. These are the five most important battles of the dreadnought age. ![]() The mythology of of the battleship age often understates how active many of the ships were both World War I and World War II saw numerous battleship engagements. In 1905, HMS Dreadnought brought together an array of innovations in shipbuilding, propulsion, and gunnery to create a new kind of warship, one that could dominate all existing battleships.Īlthough eventually supplanted by the submarine and the aircraft carrier, the battleship took pride of place in the navies of the first half of the twentieth century. The age of the steel line-of- battleship really began in the 1880s, with the construction of a series of warships that could carry and independently aim heavy guns external to the hull. ![]()
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